Quasar XF - Technology

Discover the benefits

Picture perfect

Low quality format conversion can introduce unwanted artefacts such as jaggies and tearing, and suffer from loss of vertical resolution on both static and moving regions.

Quasar XF eliminates such artefacts by using its intelligent adaptive motion processing and carefully optimized filters to provide the ultimate image quality for all types of content.

Quasar XF provides consistent high quality pictures for up, down and cross conversions giving broadcasters the competitive edge, and content owners the piece of mind that their valued content is being enjoyed the way they intended.

Working with stills, fast action, graphics and captions, Quasar XF ensures the fine detail in each and every pixel is preserved to offer clear, sharp images.

Eliminates any artefacts by using intellingent adaptive motion processing

Each de-interlacing mode has been carefully engineered to focus on a particular property of real images. These include static, vertical temporal and diagonal apertures of varying gradients. The use of soft switching avoids switching artefacts which can otherwise look more objectionable than the original interlace artefacts.

Motion estimation has just got better!

A motion estimator usually works on a local basis in the picture and measures not only the existence of motion but also its speed and direction. For frame rate conversion the output of the motion estimator provide the required motion vectors for picture building.

The motion estimator used in Quasar XF has three major advances over our existing technology.

Multi-scale candidate vector generation.

We have improved the phase correlation process to use multiple block sizes in parallel; this creates a greater range of candidate vectors, and means we don’t have to trade off performance between small, detailed objects whilst still handling a wide motion range.

Gradient-based refinement.

Alchemist XF allows the candidate motion vectors to vary slowly from pixel to pixel, using gradient based techniques to refine the vectors from initial constant values, this gives Alchemist XF improved performance over its predecessors in areas such as zooms, rotations and perspective in a receding landscape.

Vector assignment.

The final step in motion estimation is to assign a motion vector to every pixel from the candidates, it’s imperative to get this process right. If it’s done incorrectly the vector field is noisy, small objects can be missed or behavior at motion boundaries is poor. We have developed a nonlinear filter that provides improved motion performance whilst maintaining the stability of our previous approach.

All new smooth picture building.

The picture builder is the final stage where the Alchemist XF creates new frames. It is at this stage that any problems resulting from inaccurate motion vectors, transparency, very complex motion and other transformations in the picture, may appear as annoying artefacts such as fractures. The new smooth picture building techniques eliminates the presence of such fractures.